


something our lives forgot to give

by elegantstupidity



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Reunions, Tenderness, Wakanda (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-23 05:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23272834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantstupidity/pseuds/elegantstupidity
Summary: “Not a real natural fit for a kid from Brooklyn.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 29
Collections: All The Nice Things Flash Exchange 2020





	something our lives forgot to give

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roguefaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguefaerie/gifts).



Steve was under no illusions; when T'Challa gave him permission to trek out to this out of the way village on his own, he knew he wouldn't really be alone. If it weren't for the serum, though, he doubted he'd've clocked the pair of War Dogs on his five, tracking him through the trees. He couldn't exactly blame the king of Wakanda for keeping an eye out on the fugitive, even if all his instincts were screaming for him to initiate evasive maneuvers.

The rapid cycle of half-baked tactical possibilities ground to a halt as Steve stepped off the wooded path and onto the open expanse of rolling grassland, all vibrant greens and browns beneath a breath-taking sky. A hut next to a glittering lake completed the idyllic picture, but it wasn't the landscape that stopped Steve in his tracks.

That was the man, all shaggy hair and lean muscle, standing not even twenty feet away. His back was to Steve, apparently too absorbed in his work to hear him coming, but Steve would recognize him anywhere.

"Buck?"

His voice, clear but for the crack of pure emotion, rang through the air between them.

Bucky looked up from his task.

The recognition in his eyes had Steve's heart lodging hard and fast in his throat. Without thinking, he'd closed the space between them, ready to throw his arms around Bucky. It was only the slight flinch back, the wariness to the set of his shoulders that drew Steve up short. He tried to grin and mostly succeeded when Bucky didn't immediately shift into that hunted, haunted man he'd been for so long. That was better than nothing.

Blinking away the burning at the corners of his eyes, Steve looked down at the ground. Instead of his dusty boots, he was met by an inquisitive stare and a bleat.

He said the first thing that popped into his head.

“Goats?”

In recognition, the kid butted its head against Steve's knee, and he reached down automatically to give it a pat. Granted its due, it gamboled back to the herd, leaving the two soldiers to themselves.

The half smile on Bucky’s face, warm and familiar for all he hadn't seen it in a lifetime, was worth the months Steve had spent on the run, dodging his former allies as much as he was hunting down current enemies; the Avengers might be done with him, but he wasn’t quite done avenging.

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed with a rueful shake of his head. “That’s what I said at first. But they’re not so bad.”

“Not a real natural fit for a kid from Brooklyn.”

Buck’s smile lost some of its easy contentment but only because it had curved straight to true humor. He nodded around them—the wide, green pastures; the hushed giggles and whispers of the kids doing their best to hide in the brush as they spied on two strangers, the distant gleam of Birnin Zana's glass and vibranium towers. “Is any of it?”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh. He wanted to revel in it, this burst of actual enjoyment. Trying to make the world a better place—as much as he could when he was as much a fugitive as the people he was hunting down—was its own kind of reward, but it wasn't like this. It wasn't like standing in the sunshine with the man he knew best in the world, close enough to touch and maybe even ready for it sometime soon.

A soft chuckle, hardly even loud enough to hear over the breeze rustling through the grass, joined Steve's, a counterpoint he'd grown up hearing and spent years missing more than just about anything.

Hope bloomed bright and hot in Steve's chest. His laughter petered out, but the aching, brilliant smile on his face felt even better.

Bucky's smile was gentler, less of his heart bleeding out into the corners of his mouth, but Steve could read every bit of joy in it anyway.

"Nah," Steve agreed, refusing to take his eyes off Bucky's face. "Guess not." 

Bucky stared back for a long beat, his eyes drinking in Steve as avidly as Steve could feel himself looking. Hope shifted to something hungrier, a little more desperate. Tentative, Steve lifted a hand and watched as Bucky tracked its movement through the air, his entire body still as stone. He didn't flinch this time, and Steve nearly shook in relief as he got a grip on the back of his neck, fingers weaving into long, soft hair. He took a step forward, and Bucky still wasn't going anywhere, and then he had him. In his arms once more.

It was familiar and not, all at once. Steve wouldn't trade it for anything. 

Even with tension thrumming through every line of their bodies, nerves and adrenaline and the knowledge of all they'd come through to get to this moment, it was perfect. It was everything they'd spent their lives—the ones they'd expected and the ones they couldn't have seen coming—fighting for. Steve couldn't help but tuck his face into Bucky's neck, his lips dragging against the steady pulse there. Bucky's breath shuddered out in a sigh, and his arm came up to mirror Steve's, fingers digging desperately into the nape of his neck, holding them together. 

"Missed you," Steve managed to murmur, eyes sliding shut in relief. The taste of Bucky's skin hadn't changed in seventy-odd years. Nearly everything else had, but not that. Or the way Steve felt when he got his arms around this man.

"Back atcha," came Bucky's choked response. The arm at Steve's back was a taut line, the rope knotted to anchor and holding fast in the wild currents of the sea. It was only as Steve's fingers splayed against the back of his head, drawing soothing patterns into his scalp, that Bucky finally began to relax. 

Steve was aware of every second that passed as he and Bucky stood, locked in a tight embrace, but he didn't begrudge a single one of them. There were no thoughts of what else he could be doing, who else he could be saving, protecting. Maybe it was selfish, but Steve didn't care. He didn't ask for so much, not for himself. The world could give him this. 

"C'mon, punk," Bucky eventually said, voice steady but eyes full of quiet wonder as he pulled away. "Let's see if you're any better with the kids than I was at the beginning."

It wasn't the offer Steve might've hoped for when he set down on Wakandan soil this morning, but he'd certainly take it. Offering Bucky a grin, a real one that almost creaked at the corners it was so out of practice, he replied, "Oh, you are on." 

Their ringing laughter, twined music in the afternoon air, was loud enough to scare the goats. 


End file.
